Discourse Approach to Communicative Competence Formation of University Students

Abstract

The paper studies one of the urgent problems of current higher education – the training of a new specialist’s generation. The authors reveal the concept of a competitive specialist with professional communicative competence. They pay special attention to the need for future specialists to develop foreign language communicative competence within the “discourse – communication – cross-cultural professional collaboration” paradigm. In this regard, particular attention deserves the formation of discursive competence as a component of the professional communicative competence of a specialist. It is considered that a university graduate knows various types of discourses and their characteristics, knows the methods of their construction and perception in specific areas and communication scenarios. The authors provide examples of training in foreign language professional communication based on modern methods and techniques of teaching foreign languages (for example, a training project, visual means, and text work). The authors conclude that in current conditions, a competitive specialist needs to demonstrate readiness for cross-cultural communication activities using a foreign language in international professional and business relations.